Mankind has been devising, making, and using tools of one kind or another since before recorded history. Many of these toots are utilized for applying and removing fasteners used for fastening two items together. Fasteners take on many shapes and forms such as clamps, nails, and rivets. However, when a high strength fastener is required, by far the most common fastener is a threaded bolt with a mating threaded nut.
The bolt and nut effectively perform their function as the result of the bolt being received in axially aligned holes in the pieces to be attached one to the other and then threading the nut onto the threaded end of the bolt. The nut is then torqued onto the bolt so that the clamping force generated by the mated pieces creates the necessary frictional force between the mating threads. In order to apply the necessary torque to properly install a bolt and nut fastener, a wrenching tool must be used.
Wrenching tools can be of many types such as those having a handle with a fixed box end or open end affixed at an end of the tool. These ends can be of a fixed size to accept only one size of bolt head or nut, or alternatively, the ends can be adjustable to adapt to multiple bolt head and nut sizes. Such wrenches having heads that are fixed to the handle in a stationary manner must be repeatedly removed and reapplied to the bolt head or nut to achieve the desired torque, and an entire series of wrenches must be available for those with dimensionally fixed ends.
One development in wrenches has been the adoption of a wrenching handle to which a series of differently sized sockets can be attached. In this manner one handle can be utilized for any number of differently sized bolt heads and nuts. Further, ratcheting systems have been incorporated into some wrenching handles so that the socket can be repeatedly and unidirectionally torqued without the socket having to be removed from the bolt head or nut to which it is applied.
Since a large majority of bolts and nuts are fabricated from steel, magnets have been incorporated into tools to assist in keeping the fastener element in engaging contact with the wrenching tool. This is especially helpful where the fastener elements are being applied is areas that are difficult to access with other tools or with the user's hands and fingers. However, some sockets are fabricated as deep well sockets and when mating a relatively short bolt to a nut, the nut or bolt being held by a magnet into the well of the socket may not be able to be mated. Therefore, a wrenching shaft for accepting sockets wherein the shaft has an axially adjustable magnet with a side adjustment mechanism is needed.